Interdisciplinary Explorations of Postmortem Interaction: Dead Bodies, Funerary Objects, and Burial Spaces Through Texts and Time (Bioarchaeology and Social Theory)

In the present as in the past, the dead have been deployed to promote visions of identity, as well as ostensibly wider human values. Through a series of case studies from ancient Egypt through prehistoric, historic, and present-day Europe, this book discusses what is constant and what is locally and historically specific in our ways of interacting with the remains of the dead, their objects, and monuments. Postmortem interaction encompasses not only funerary rituals and intergenerational engagement with forebears, but also concerns encounters with the dead who died centuries and millennia ago. Drawing from a variety of disciplines such as archaeology, bioarchaeology, literary studies, ancient Egyptian philology, and sociocultural anthropology, this volume provides an interdisciplinary account of the ways in which the dead are able to transcend temporal distances and engender social relationships. Until quite recently, literary sciences and archaeology were generally regarded asincommensurable in their aims, methodologies, and source material. Although archaeologists and literary critics have been increasingly willing to borrow concepts and terminology from the other discipline, this book is one examples of a genuinely collaborative endeavor. This is an open access book. Foreword Acknowledgments Contents Editors and Contributors About the Editors Contributors Chapter 1: Interdisciplinary Explorations of Postmortem Interaction: An Introduction 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Staking Out the Research Field 1.3 The Chapters in This Volume 1.4 Approaching the Living and Dead in This Book 1.5 Conclusions References Chapter 2: Visitors, Usurpers, and Renovators: Glimpses from the History of Egyptian Sepulchral Monuments 2.1 Introduction 2.1.1 The Egyptian Tomb as a Place of Eternal Life 2.2 Visitors 2.3 Usurpers 2.4 Renovators 2.5 Epilogue References Chapter 3: Literary Tombs and Archaeological Knowledge in the Twelfth-Century ‘Romances of Antiquity’ 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The Tomb of Pallas in the Roman d’Eneas 3.3 The Tomb of Hector 3.4 Pallas, Again 3.5 Conclusion References Chapter 4: Anachronic Entanglements: Archaeological Traces and the Event in Beowulf 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Beowulf and the Traces of Archaeology 4.3 The Sword as Trace 4.4 The Dragon’s Treasure 4.5 The Event in History: An Entanglement of Traces References Chapter 5: The Distant Past of a Distant Past ...: Perception and Appropriation of Deep History During the Iron Ages in Northern Germany (Pre-Roman Iron Age, Roman Iron Age, and Migration Period) 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Burying Alongside the Long-Dead: The Reuse of Ancient Burial Grounds for Burial Activities 5.3 Beyond Burial(s): The Wider Context of the Perception and Appropriation of the Past During the Iron Ages in Northern Central Europe 5.3.1 Reuse of Old Burial Sites for Non-Funerary Activities 5.3.2 Reuse of Non-Burial Sites 5.3.3 Heirloom Objects 5.3.4 Field Systems and Monuments 5.4 Possibilities of Interpretation: Between Ancestor Veneration, Identity, and Distinction References Chapter 6: In Search of an Acceptable Past: History, Archaeology, and ‘Looted’ Graves in the Construction of the Frankish Early Middle Ages 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The Franks Before 1789: Origins of the French Monarchy 6.3 The French Revolution: Questioning of a Frankish Past 6.4 The Nineteenth Century: A New Representation of the Frankish Past 6.5 Nation, Legacy, and the Material Past 6.6 Learned Societies and National Archaeology 6.7 Merovingian Archaeology: The Contribution of Urban Planning Work 6.8 Archaeologists and the Practice of Grave Reopening 6.9 Merovingian Archaeology in the Nineteenth Century: Auxiliary Science of History 6.10 Merovingian Archaeology in the Twentieth Century: Gradual Independence 6.11 Conclusions References Chapter 7: From Saint to Anthropological Specimen: The Transformation of the Alleged Skeletal Remains of Saint Erik 7.1 Introduction 7.1.1 King Erik: History and Legend 7.2 Becoming a Saint in the Middle Ages 7.2.1 Body Politic and Body Economic 7.3 Saint Erik’s Physical Remains in the Middle Ages 7.3.1 The Condition of the Bones 7.3.2 Inspections, Divisions, Processions, and Coronation Ceremonies 7.4 From the Reformation to the Age of Enlightenment 7.5 From the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries 7.5.1 Anthropological Analysis of 1915: The Eugenics Movement 7.5.2 Anthropological Analysis of 1946: Forensic Approach 7.5.3 Anthropological Analysis of 2014: Multidisciplinary Approach 7.5.4 The Public Interest in the 2014 Investigation 7.6 Summary: Faith and Science References Chapter 8: Dissolving Subjects in Medieval Reliquaries and Twentieth-Century Mass Graves 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Unearthing the Dead at the Free University Berlin 8.3 Emotion, Identity, and Encounters with Liminal Objects 8.4 Encounters with Mass Graves in Jamlitz, Brandenburg 8.5 Encounters with Mass Graves in Bosnia References Chapter 9: The Graves When They Open, Will Be Witnesses Against Thee: Mass Burial and the Agency of the Dead in Thomas Dekker’s Plague Pamphlets 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Narrating the Plague 9.3 Shaming Dead Bodies: Criminals, Suicides, and the Plague Dead 9.4 Horrors of the Mass Grave 9.5 Rising from the Grave 9.6 Agency of the Dead 9.7 Conclusion References Chapter 10: Shakespearean Exhumations: Richard III, the Princes in the Tower, and the Prehistoric Romeo and Juliet 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Hamlet and Archaeologists 10.3 The Forensic Examination of the Putative Remains of the Princes in the Tower in 1933 10.4 The Exhumation of Richard III in 2012 10.5 The Discovery of a Pair of Embracing Neolithic Skeletons Near Mantua in 2007 10.6 Conclusions References Chapter 11: Cemetery Enchanted, Encore: Natural Burial in France and Beyond 11.1 Introduction 11.2 A Transnational Natural Burial Movement 11.3 « Cimetière naturel de Souché »: A Local Adaptation in Niort, France 11.3.1 Responding to and Implementing Change 11.4 (In)Animate Agents 11.4.1 Grave Decorations 11.4.2 Cultural Flowers, Natural Weeds 11.5 Precursors and Variations of a Movement 11.5.1 The Rural Cemetery Movement 11.5.2 Natural Burial in Britain 11.5.3 Natural Enchantment in France 11.6 Conclusions References Chapter 12: The Cemetery and Ossuary at Sedlec near Kutná Hora: Reflections on the Agency of the Dead 12.1 Introduction 12.2 Medieval Beginnings 12.3 Medieval Cemeteries and Confraternities at Kutná Hora 12.4 Sedlec Abbey 12.4.1 SS. Philip the Apostle and James 12.4.2 Sedlec’s Cemetery and the Legend of the Holy Soil 12.4.3 Church of all Saints with Ossuary 12.5 Bones, Ghosts, and Martyrs 12.5.1 The Holy Field 12.5.2 Martyrs of the Hussite Wars 12.6 Discussion and Conclusion References Index In the present as in the past, the dead have been deployed to promote visions of identity, as well as ostensibly wider human values. Through a series of case studies from ancient Egypt through prehistoric, historic, and present-day Europe, this book discusses what is constant and what is locally and historically specific in our ways of interacting with the remains of the dead, their objects, and monuments. Postmortem interaction encompasses not only funerary rituals and intergenerational engagement with forebears, but also concerns encounters with the dead who died centuries and millennia ago. Drawing from a variety of disciplines such as archaeology, bioarchaeology, literary studies, ancient Egyptian philology, and sociocultural anthropology, this volume provides an interdisciplinary account of the ways in which the dead are able to transcend temporal distances and engender social relationships. Until quite recently, literary sciences and archaeology were generally regarded as incommensurable in their aims, methodologies, and source material. Although archaeologists and literary critics have been increasingly willing to borrow concepts and terminology from the other discipline, this book is one examples of a genuinely collaborative endeavor. This is an open access book